Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: sky

  • Coming Full Circle

    When we come full circle,
    there is often the feeling that
    we have arrived in a familiar place,
    but that we ourselves are somehow different.

    ~ Daily Om

    I have been obsessed with taking photos of the sky again.

    This morning I was text-chatting about the changing nature of skies with my brother-in-love, Larry, who is a very skillful photographer / gifted artist. A powerful scene from the film, “The Last Samurai,” came to mind and I was able to find a clip I have long held in my mind and heart. I watched it a few times. I find it quite compelling.

    While not historically true, this story of an American military officer who is hired by the Emperor of Japan to train the country’s first army in the act of modern warfare is worthy of noting:

    As the government attempts to eradicate the ancient Samurai warrior class in preparation for more Westernized and trade-friendly policies, Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) finds himself unexpectedly affected by his encounters with the Samurai, which places him at the center of a struggle between two eras and two worlds.

    Early on, Katsumoto (the samurai) tells Algren, “The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You can spend your life looking for one and it will not be a wasted life…”

    True also about skies….

    Like Katsumoto humans have found ourselves at the center of a struggle between two eras and two worlds.

    With his dying breath Katsumoto discovered the truth:

    “Perfect…. They are all…. perfect….”

    Why wait to know that truth?

    Continuing from the Daily Om opening quotation about coming full circle:

    We know that we can handle challenges
    that seemed insurmountable when we began our journey,
    and there is the feeling that
    we might be ready to take on a new problem,
    or some new aspect of the old problem.

    We feel empowered and courageous
    to have taken on the challenge
    of stopping a pattern,
    releasing a habit,
    or overcoming a fear,
    and to have succeeded.

  • Skies Upon Skies

    “Skies upon skies are available for your flight.”
    – Osho Zen Tarot

    I feel a little bit like the morning after Christmas, or the ninth day of Hanukkah. For the closing sharing of this eight-day Intensive/Retreat—the culmination of a two-year commitment to study and practice—I had written: When I logged on this morning, Dallas was the only other one online. I asked him about his virtual image in his background – a waterfall. I showed him a photo of me, also at a waterfall in Maui. We had a lovely visit and I am so glad we shared…

    That photo of me at the waterfall is framed and sits on my altar helping me value the dharma path that began long before I knew the word dharma.

    I was born in fear and I was living in fear. Not MY fear, but THE fear. My mother was informed that she had syphilis simultaneously with the discovery that she was pregnant. My first trimester in her womb was spent with my mom at a sanatorium being treated. She was angry, embarrassed, afraid….

    My alcoholic father had had sex with someone else, and that is how my mother got infected. I knew nothing of this until in my 40s when I began to have awareness of feeling unloved, unsafe, and unwanted. I was a successful professional, happily married, and I had had a good relationship with my mom. Nothing could account for those feelings, but I knew they were there.

    I knew I would benefit by uncovering the pain.

    In a hypnotic regression to the womb, hearing Les Crane sing Desiderata to me through headphones I had total realization of those feelings. Later I asked my mother if she could help me understand. She told me of the syphilis.

    Many of you were there when I shared this as part of “Listen to Your Mother” and it is still available on YouTube.

    The fear I lived with, the feelings of not loved, not safe, not wanted arose out of the human condition. I am so grateful to know the truth. Those feeling, any feelings, are not me nor mine.

    Instead of sharing all of those words as my closing, I simply shared a series of photos of the sky taken from the window in the guest/room office where I was “on retreat” for those eight days, and where I am now with my fingers on the keyboard, looking at the ever-changing sky:


    Aaron’s closing talk was brief and to the point:
    You have everything within you
    to co-create a future
    for the highest good of all beings.
    A future where beings are awake,
    free of suffering.


    Two years ago,
    we did not know that
    there was going to be
    a COVID-19 in our future.

    But of course,
    there would be something
    in our future.

    Some challenge.
    And you are meeting it with
    wisdom and open hearts.

    Please do not forget to imagine…
    to hold your heart open
    and picture an earth free of disease,
    free of hatred

    —an earth in which
    all sentient beings
    can truly flourish.
    May it be.
    May it be so.